Speights Likely Gone

-The Morning-Journal thinks Marreese Speights is gone after this season, which is probably the case. For more evidence, note that Byron Scott is stillstarting Tyler Zeller over the former Grizzly. Too bad. I like Speights a lot, and his propensity to fall in love with his jump shot is offset a little by his mean streak and gritty offensive rebounding.

-Greg Oden actually sat in Dan Gilbert’s seats at the Memphis game, which is probably a good sign if you’re one of those people that wants the Cavs to sign him, and a bad sign if you’re not.

As much as I question some (read: a lot) of Byron’s moves, I have no problem with him starting New Z over Mo. For one, New Z needs as much experience as he can get, and I’d rather he get it during a lost season. Secondly, Mo has great chemistry with the rest of the Herculoids, there’s no reason to break that up. Another much less doubtful explanation is that Byron was ordered to minimize the showcasing of Mo in hopes to keep his price tag at a reasonable price come offseason.

My prediction is the Cavs Draft Otto. Talking wih some people who know and they don’t think the Cavs are high on Otto. So unless we are drafting 10-13 (good possibility) My prediction is Len then Zeller if he’s gone

Yeah, why would they say they’re high on Porter if they ARE going to draft him… unless others think that’s their strategy, then they’s say they WERE interested..unless of course, everyone else knows THAT…

Does anyone recall the extension that the Thunder gave to Nick Collison? Basically they had cap room so when he signed the extension he got a signing bonus the first year when they still had cap room so Collison got the entire signing bonus the first year instead of it being prorated throughout the contact. I don’t know if the new CBA allows for such deals for teams under the cap or if Speights is elligible for that type of an extension. If they are, Grant would theoretically be able to give Speights a $4 million signing bonus this year and a little on top of his 2013-2014 salary.

I’m okay with them letting him go though. The last thing I want for this team is to overpay. I like Ma-double R-double E-se, but the Cavs already won that trade. They will get a lottery pick for Jon Leuer. They should get another year of Ellington for Jon Leuer. Grant is already ahead. There’s no point in overpaying for a backup and putting himself behind.

Sure, Dave and Corey, you still make the trade. But what you do after should have nothing to do with that trade. As Matthew said, we filled the Varejao void for half a season. But for a non-playoff team, that is nearly meaningless. Even if we got a late first rounder in a year or two, that’s a lot more useful than Speights this season. We should be looking to build the next championship contender, not be somewhat respectable for half a season.

I agree that they are all assets. If Grant could have gotten something for Speights at the deadline he would have accepted it. We are talking about a guy who was part of a cash dump a month prior. Anyone in the league could have had Speights for literally nothing.

So you don’t think they could have gotten a late first rounder in a year or two? Even a second rounder is better going forward than nothing at all.

And no, not anyone in the league could have had Speights. Only a team with enough room under the cap to take all those contracts from Memphis could have had him, making the market for him under Memphis’ terms almost non-existent.

Interesting, Cory. I thought I had answered this last week, when I was told players can’t get raises or decreases of more than 7.5% in a bird contract or 4.5% in a non bird contract. But this does not include signing bonuses.

I don’t understand how they did that Collison contract, because it doesn’t seem they should be able to. But here’s how I THINK it worked. Because it was an extension, and not a new contract, they could give him the signing bonus during the year he was playing under their current cap. Then, years 2011-2015 were essentially a new contract.

An interesting tidbit from the salary cap FAQ:

“In the special case of a multi-year contract that is entirely non-guaranteed, the entire signing bonus is applied to the first season of the contract.” Could the Cavs sign players to non-guaranteed contracts next year and apply large guaranteed signing bonuses in order to do it?

* The calculation for allocating the signing bonus to the years of the contract is somewhat confusing. It is not proportionate to the salary, but rather to how much of the salary is guaranteed. If there are five years in the contract, there is no option year or ETO, and each year of the contract is 100% guaranteed, then 20% of the signing bonus is allocated equally to each season of the contract, even though (as in the example above), the salary increases throughout the contract. Using the above example, if the fifth year of the contract was only 50% guaranteed, then $1,248,923 of the bonus would be applied to each of the first four seasons, and $624,462 would be applied to the fifth season.

So what if the Cavs offered speights 3 year, 20 million dollar contract, with an average salary of 5.33 million, but completely non-guaranteed base salaries except for the $4 million dollar signing bonus? Speights gets $9.33 million to play next year and the contract is structured so that the most money is in the first year, so the cavs have easier options in years 2 and 3?

OK, I just looked this up. The Collison contract was an extremely rare case that can only be done if a player extends and renegotiates his contract at the same time.

“A renegotiated contract can be extended simultaneously (see question number 58). If a player’s contract is extended and renegotiated simultaneously in this manner, his salary may not decrease by more than 40% from the last season before the extension (after it is renegotiated) to the first season of the extension. For example, if the salary in the last season of a contract is renegotiated to $10 million and the contract is simultaneously extended, the salary in the first season of the extension cannot be less than $6 million. ”

“A contract for four or more seasons can be renegotiated after the third anniversary of its signing, extension, or previous renegotiation (if the previous negotiation increased any season’s salary by more than 4.5%). Contracts for fewer than four seasons cannot be renegotiated. A contract cannot be renegotiated between March 1 and June 30 of any year. ”

Only players on the third or fourth year of a four year contract can re-negotiate, so Speights is out of the running on this, since he signed a 1 year deal with a player option for a 2nd year next summer.

The Lineup: (Click for Author’s Archive)

Nate Smith is an Associate Editor. He grew up in Anchorage, Alaska, and moved to NE Ohio in 2000. He adopted the Cavs in 2003 and graduated from Kent State in 2009 with a BA in English. He can be contacted at oldseaminer@gmail.com or @oldseaminer on Twitter.

Tom Pestak is an Associate Editor. He's from the west side of Cleveland and lives and (mostly) dies by the success and (mostly) failures of his beloved teams. You can watch his fanaticism during Cavs games @tompestak.

Robert Attenweiler is a Staff Writer. Originally from OH, he's long made his home in NYC where he writes plays and screenplays (www.disgracedproductions.com) some of which end up being about Ohio, basketball or both. He has also written for The Classical and the blog Raising the Cadavalier. You can contact him at rattenweiler@gmail.com or @cadavalier.

Benjamin Werth is a Staff Writer. He was born in Cleveland and raised in Mentor, OH. He now lives in Germany where he is an opera singer and actor. He can be reached at blfwerth@gmail.com.

Cory Hughey is a Staff Writer. He grew up in Youngstown, the Gary, Indiana of Ohio. He graduated from Youngstown State in 2008 with a worthless telecommunications degree. He can be contacted at theleperfromwatts@yahoo.com or @coryhughey on Twitter.

David Wood is our Links Editor. He is a 2012 Graduate of Syracuse University with an English degree who loves bikes, beer, basketball, writing, and Rimbaud. He can be reached on Twitter: @nothingwood.

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John Krolik is the Editor Emeritus of Cavs: The Blog. At present, he is pursuing a law degree at Tulane University. You can contact him at johnkrolik@gmail.com or @johnkrolik.

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